The state chronicle., 1887-11-10
4 BIT OF HISTORY,
A CLAIM FOR NORTH CAROLYN
IGNORED IN BOSTON.
Hr. Collier Cobb Ate. ads II Reetin. in
HostOn--N " hat lie Hears Causes Him
To IHaite Some Historical Statements.

dislike for eXtravagant fancies and a de
sire to give American history a definite
| starting point is no vain and shadowv' ro-
nance, have caused our historians to neg
! lect the Sagas of the Vikings, regarding
the early Morse explorers as none Others
than the man IN the moon and the hYing
Dutchman whose habitations were castles
Ill the air. And unfortunately some would
be historians have traced Il connection be
tween the Dighton Rock and the Newport
Tower and these early explorers But the
inscriptions on the Dighton Rock are now
regarded as the work Of Indians. and the
ReV. Z. /. Brooks and DR.. Palfrey have
shown that there is Just such mill as this
Old lower at Chesterton, England, the
town from which the first governor of
Newport came. Governor Arnold men
tions this in his will, dated 1878, as 'mv
stone built wind MILL and the diary of a
contemporary citizen preserves the date of
its building.
The claim of the Norsemen. however,
that Left Erickson was the discoyeror Of
America, does not rest upon ANYTHING
vague or legendary, but is confirmed by
manuscripts Of good authority, preserved
IN Iceland, the saga of Eric the Red and
the karlsefue saga, the one having been
written IN Greenland and the other in lee
land. So the Boston people, who believe
that the first protoplaSm was evolved from
Boston mud, settled it among themselves
that Left first landed in Boston, and on
Saturday last set up his statue in the Back
Bay Park, and made speeches at Faueuil
Hall i'll honor of his deeds
Rev. Edward Everett Hale presided at
the meeting, and after expressing gratitude
to Ole Bull who put on foot this move
ment not long before his death, said he
knew what the Dryasdusts Of history had
sometimes looked with annoyance upon
these fascinating Sagas. Il had been iuti-
mated to him that some Of the great au-
thorltles on the history of Massachusetts
d,d not commit themselves as to the de
| tails of this great adventure. They were
not sure if Left or Thorwald landed on the
north side of the Back Bay or or the south
side, or If he looked out lpon TrimOun-
tain from Point Allerton or from the
| BreWsters. But when he remembered that
the sk6ptics had historical doubts even Of
an event which was SO late as the Boston
massacre, an event from which certainly
something had sprung worth remember
ing, he was little Disconnected BY their
| skepticisln. DR.. Hale closed with some
! thing about the marriage Of America to
! Norway, after which the dedicatOrY speech
was made by Prof. E. \. HOr5!ord. of
| Cambridge.
| Professor Horstord, after referring to
| the Inscriptions on column of rock still
standing on the west coast Of Greenland
and bearing the date 1135, stated that
there are numerous similar columns with
like inscriptions found in Norway aud
| Sweden. AT Gardar, on one of the bays
of Greenland, there are standing the walls
OF massive stone bliiding, which, since
its erection has sunk down until its fOun-
| datiOns are below the level Of the sea OF
the bishop who first ruled over the people
! wOrshipplng in this ancient edifice, We
have authentic records in the Catholic
church. BY them we find that the tribute
TO the Pope from these Icelandic colonies,
besides the Peters pence, amounted tc
1900 pounds of walrus teeth annually
The lecture was made up principally
from the manuscripts Of Professor Mitchell
of the United States Coast Survey Left, e
says Prof. Mitchell, "neyer passed to the
south of the peninsula of Cape Cod Ht
was succeeded by Thorwald, Leif's brother
He came in Leif's ships in 1909 TO Left
headquarters in Massachusetts bay anC
passed the winter. In the spring he manned
his ship and sailed eastward from Left
house, and, unluckily running against .
neck of land, broke the stern Of the ship
- Thorwald remained In the
country and two years later was killed il
a battle with the Indians. He was buried
in Ninland and his crew returned to Green
land. "A few years later, Thorfinn and
his wife. Gudrid, set out with fleet O
three ships and 100 persons, of whom sever
were women, to go to Vinland, and in two
days sail beyond Markland they came tt
the nose" OF Thorwald's ship set upon tht
shore, and they called this shore Wunder
strandir. ''Thorfinn and Gudrid Wen
farther south and trafficked, and gathered
great wealth Of furS aud woods, and theI
returned to Greenland and Norway" Th1
lecturer found in No Mans Land, the small
island southwest of Martha's Vineyard
"a memory of No,thman's Land" and il
Vineyard a trace Of the Northman5 Vim
land.
My purpose, however, is not to give
report of the lecture, but to enter CLAIM
for North Carolina which was entirely l.
nored by the lecturer Indeed, he claime
that from the descriptions Of the low
sandy, shelving shores we were led to sup
pose that New Jersey was the land visited
and he neglected entirely those othe
, Sagas, equally authentic, which give aC
| counts Of expeditions to HyITRAMANNA
LAND. or THE WHITE MANS LAND, Otherwi
known as IRLAND IT MIKLA. The last O
/ these expeditions was made in the yea
1917 when the Black Plague which rage
throughput E-uloi'c CAtt CIl slII I'D
ton with Vinland and with Great lrland
One of these Sagas, that of Karlsefue
t gives a description of an inland sea tha
: answers well the description Of PamlIc
} Sound and the region in which they spen
: some time, as described by them, is ;
much like the country around Washing
4 ton, n. c., and just above that point, tha
r we may safely conclude that they are on
e and the same. aIlsefue then sailed soutl
S ward along the entire coast of the CarOlina
and possibly also that Of Georgia. In tn
Spring when the news Of this discover
reached Iceland, a party set out to fin
this ''white mans land, but as none
them ever returned their friends suppose
them lost.
# In 1857, there were dug out of swan
. on the plantation of Mr.. James King,
Sampson county, n. c., portions of a We
IS sci bearing a close resemblance to the O
Viking Ships, but whose figure head W;
an eagle, the standard of the Roman
+. Now we know that the Romans We're II
traditional foes Of the North men, al
t, also that the North men had outstrippt
I. them in maritime inventions, being Il
t, first users of the keel while yet the Rom;
ships were fiat bottomed, and this figur
head may have been a trophy capture
from the Romans years before.
Another account is given Of a powerf
chieftain, Are Marsow, of Keykianes,
Iceland, who, in the year 903, was driy
by storms to our shores and here receiy